An Update on Humanities Peer Mentoring

The Mission Employable team are almost at the end of our internships with only one week left and Humanities Peer Mentoring has already begun! Once the details of the University of Southampton’s new students were accessible I began matching up these students, who are now mentees, into groups with two Mentors.

The Mentors have all been emailed with the details of their new groups and instructions for their next steps. Mentors have begun to email their mentees with a ‘Welcome Letter’ written by both Mentors, explaining who they are, a bit about their role, and when the first opportunity to meet each other will be.

Charlotte and I have also been working closely over the last few weeks, as soon she will be starting her new role as Humanities Peer Mentor Coordinator. The coordinator will be in charge of all the administration, the review process, helping in running the training day, supporting mentors, and recruiting mentors for the commencing year.

Something we have created together is a Peer Mentor Coordinator Facebook account for both mentors and mentees to use as an additional point of contact. Furthermore, it will be a great way for the Coordinator to send out reminders and a secondary way to share information with Mentors and Mentees.  We also created a closed group on Facebook, just for mentors, as a great way for mentors to contact each other, share good practice, and give advice!

Here is the link to the Coordinator page: https://www.facebook.com/peermentoring.coordinator

What is more, the training session planning is well underway and we have over 150 mentors confirmed to attend, as well as guest speakers from the Faculty, SUSU, and Student Services to provide Mentors will the knowledge of how best to advise mentees and to point them in the right direction for their queries!

There will also be a training session for Mentor Officers. There are ten mentor officers, one for every academic society within humanities, a role which has been taken up by one of the current committee members. Mentor Officers are an additional point of call for Mentors, positioned just underneath the Coordinator, they will have direct contact with all mentors within their society. They can also offer direct and specific guidance and information for their department and society, which means each department can incorporate its own needs into the scheme.

Both training sessions will be commencing on the Monday of Fresher’s week.

The Mentor handbook has been completed, and shared to other members of staff to share best practice and will be given to all Mentors at the training session. The Handbook includes:

• Information about the scheme
• Information about their role as a Mentor
• Details on all the support networks available
• Useful information, such as top tips and ideas for meetings

I am also in the process of creating a smaller handbook for Mentees, informing them what the scheme is and what their role is and their Mentors, some useful information, and top tips. This will be circulated to Mentees via their Mentors in the forthcoming weeks.

That’s all for now!